US Intelligence Chiefs Urge Easing Of Spy Rules

The US admninistration is not looking for this law change to enable them to "Better fight the War On Terror". The truth is that the US Administration need the law relaxed because they think that it will then make it easier for them to get a retrospective law change that may further help them to crawl out of a rather deep set of legal and constitutional holes that they currently find themselves in. You see, the Dubya administration has trampled all over the laws of the US and the Constitution itself and they have, as seen in the video, admitted it along the way. The problems they now face are coming from all directions such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation's successful application to sue AT&T for handing over phone records without a warrant. The President has already blocked one investigation into his conduct regarding this issue and now they are looking to srike down all others before they even get started.

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[erroneus]

... oh forget it. I was going to come up with some 'clever' parallel where other people want to make their jobs easier and sloppier.

The point of current law and regulation for government powers to get information and investigate is to ensure that the interests of civilians are preserved and balanced against the needs of the government in doing its job. What they are saying is that they can't do their jobs without even more easy and invasive permissions.

Maybe I'll be modded down for this, but I think I'd rather see another 9-11 than to see what is happening to the way of life we have enjoyed until now. But frankly, if we just stay out of their business and stop backing Israel, I think we'd have little to no threat since this is ultimately what this boils down to in the first place... that and oil which could be, I'm sure, managed in other ways. We're capitalists after all.

And while I'm on the subject, how about we punish the president for his flagrant violation of law before we move to change it. If we make murder legal today, that doesn't mean we need to free yesterday's murderers from prison does it? If we make speeding on our streets legal, does that mean speeders should get a refund?

I'm still somewhat baffled as to why there is so little focus on the violations that have occurred and the blocking of investigations.

Until you are unelected or retire

[Flying pig]

Berlusconi kicked and screamed but was unable to overturn the election result, and now they are coming for him. And Pinochet hasn't exactly had an easy life since he was removed from power.

The real nightmare for people like the current President and some of his friends must be that to be safe, they must find a way to hold onto power for a long time. This has been the problem that has led to gerontocracies in places like fascist Spain, China and parts of the Middle East. But the US is not a dictatorship, it is a pluralist federation, and the possibility exists that in the revolution of the political cycle the time will come when a US government will indict a member of the present Administration for war crimes. Of course it could never happen...but the British and the French both once executed a monarch and the British allowed the deposition of another in what they called the Glorious Revolution. Perhaps, just as Putin has clawed back Russian oil from the kleptarchs, one day a US Government strapped for cash will start to go after the plutarchs.

A British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson,once famously said that three weeks was a long time in politics. I'm not sure that the present generation of politicians are thinking as far ahead as that.

Re:It wouldn't be so bad **iff**

[Grab]

There are, unfortunately, far more Muslims who are at least sympathetic to terrorism than there are religionists of any other persuasion.

You mean, "religionists" like, say Christians? I give you Rwanda, Northern Ireland, the USA (anti-abortion campaigners) and Serbia. All lovely folks who I'm sure you want inside your borders... Or Israel, which at the last count has managed to kill 600 "non-believers" in 2 weeks? Please get the reality, that religion really doesn't matter a damn.

The simple fact is that "the only way to fight Islamic terrorism" is to stop doing things that piss off the citizens of those countries, such as bombing civilians. Currently the US and the UK have royally fucked up Iraq to the extent of allowing a civil war to take place, Afghanistan is still in the shitter, and they're providing military and financial support for Israel while it bombs civilians and other non-military targets in Lebanon and Palestine. Meantime, George Bush is busy pointing the finger at Syria and Iran as the next targets, because they sponsor terrorism.

Hmm, a state which sponsors terrorism? How's about the USA? For US-supported countries whose governments actively terrorised their citizens, or where the US supported terrorist activities against the government, or where the US actively attacked/invaded to try and establish a government favourable to them, I give you: Cuba, Grenada, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Haiti, Congo, Vietnam, Cambodia, Argentina, Guatemala, Panama, Chile, Guyana, Angola... And that's just the ones I can remember easily.

Given how successful all this intervention has been (every single one of the examples above has been an unmitigated failure), an awful lot of people wish that the US would keep well out of international affairs, because the US government and the CIA clearly couldn't find their ass with both hands. And if they stopped fucking up other people's countries, maybe the citizens of those countries (and others) would feel more kindly towards the US.

I'm almost amused when I hear Americans saying how big a deal 9/11 was. In Iraq alone, that's about 2 weeks worth of civilian casualties (according to the most *optimistic* casualty figures). If you can imagine 9/11 happening every fortnight, maybe you will then understand why the US is not exactly appreciated abroad.

Grab.

Re:Please vote this time

[Greyfox]

Starting by voting incumbents (Democrat or Republican) out ever time their term is up will do two things. First it'll send a message to Washington that voting America is pissed off and until things really change they won't get the nice perks of staying in office. It'll also limit the amount of damage they can do and the amount of corrupting influences they can build up before we kick them back out of office.

While currently voting for a third party at the federal level is about the same as throwing your vote away (Though it can still make a statement) you can vote for other parties at local and state levels and they frequently have more success. And if they can gain enough traction and do a good enough job at a state level then they should start having better chances at a federal level, too.

Re:I hate the Republicans as much as the next guy.

[Malakusen]

Well what the hell do you expect us Democrats to do? We don't have a majority in the House or Senate, the Republicans haven't and won't listen to us, and any attempt to stop Republican policies from being steamrolled through Congress gets blasted as being obstructionist. There is NOT a whole hell of a lot you can do when you're not in control of any of the three branches of the government, it's like getting pissed off at somebody for not trying to destroy a tank with an M-16.